The Other
by Jade Hunter
Summary: Part 3 in the Sibling Series. His sister gives Remus the chance to meet...his other sister? What?


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Title: The Other

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Author: Jade Hunter

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Disclaimer: None of the characters or properties of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and _Harry Potter_ belong to me.

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A.N: Just because I love this one-shot series of mine, here's the sequel to _The Meeting_, the third in my impromptu Sibling Series! A little sappy.

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"And this is my home," Buffy smiled nervously.

Remus made a show of looking around the house, and smiled approvingly at her. It was nothing like Grimmauld Place, of course, but it was far better than what he had used to life in for many years. 

No job generally meant no income, after all.

She grinned back, but still seemed on edge.

Finally, having dealt with this anxious behavior of hers for about an hour now, Remus asked, concerned, "Is something wrong?"

"Wrong?" she practically squeaked. "What could possibly be wrong?"

"Why don't you tell me," he suggested, smiling gently at her, hoping to put her at ease.

She spluttered for a few moments; "There's nothing wrong, what could possibly be, I mean, everything's perfectly fine, peachy, why do they say that anywa – "

"Buffy," Remus said.

She deflated. "Okay," she admitted, "I have something to tell you."

He waited expectantly.

"I…wantyoutomeetmylittlesister," she rushed without pausing for a breath. "HernameisDawnand – "

Remus blinked.

It took him a moment to process the rapid words that had come from Buffy's mouth, but when he did, he was absolutely…

…amused.

"Buffy," he said again, chuckling. "Is this what you've been worrying about? I'd be happy to meet your sister, really."

She blinked. "Really?"

"Really," and he even mockingly mimicked her little American accent. Or, attempted to.

Buffy made a face at that, but then asked hesitantly, "So, it's okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Remus asked, honestly confused by her nervousness. "When I heard you were adopted, of course I considered the fact that you would have adopted siblings. It's no problem at all. It's really not as if we're going to have a fight over who's your favorite. My bones are a bit too old for that."

Instead of being embarrassed at her overreaction, Buffy seemed far more nervous.

"Well, the thing is…" she bit her lip. "Maybe it's best if you saw her first. Dawn!"

Apparently, this had all been arranged beforehand, as Buffy didn't raise her voice too much, and it only took a moment for Remus to register the sound of hurried footsteps coming from the other room. Buffy's sister fairly zipped her way to Buffy's side, and presented herself with a nervous grin.

Remus felt as if he'd been punched in the solar plexus.

He gasped for air, groping for something to lean on, and an anxious Buffy slipped under his arm and held him steady with a strength that belied her small stature.

__

Slayer strength, he reminded himself, but his thoughts went to what had flummoxed him so badly. _How…?_

Remus stared at the young woman named Dawn for a long minute, processing the details.

She was taller than Buffy, who barely reached his shoulder, and came up to his chin. She wasn't petite, but rather willow-y in figure and grace, and had the look of a young woman who was finally comfortable with who she was.

But that wasn't what struck him.

What struck him was the nose, the mouth. They all belonged to Buffy, who had gotten it from Remus' mother.

What struck him were the eyes, and the hair color. The very same eyes that belonged to Remus' father, down to the shape and color, and the very same hair color that Remus himself had borne before his premature grays had invaded.

"How?" he wheezed.

Buffy grinned nervously at him at his side, and her sister did the same from in front of him.

It was the same grin.

The same, bloody grin!

His voice came out stronger, if still a bit hoarse, as he repeated, "**_How_**?"

They shared a concerned glance, then ushered him into the living room, where he let himself be pulled onto the couch. Buffy sat on one side of him, even as Dawn positioned herself in front of him by sitting on the coffee table.

Wordlessly, Remus looked to his sister – the **_only_** sister he'd ever had – for an explanation.

And boy, did he get one.

There was a lot of roundabout talk of some woman with a pad perm who Buffy vehemently denied as being cuter than her, even as Dawn said it was all relative, and also about a Healer-type man who turned into said woman.

Remus was more than a little iffy on that part.

To be honest, he had trouble understanding some of what Buffy, and now Dawn, said; he understood more than the average wizard would, having spent some time in North America before, but there were still some moments of utter confusion.

But what little he did understand from their very vague explanation, filled with small spats over smaller details and incidents that had happened then (an accusation about a stolen sweater being one), was that Dawn had not always been human. She had been a mystical "thing-a-ma-bob", as Buffy had put it, and had been given the form of a human girl by some "weirdo monk guys" and had memories of her "planted in us by some wacky mojo".

"That doesn't explain why you look so alike," Remus protested. _Why she looks so much like our parents,_ he added silently.

"Well," Buffy shrugged. "That was one of the things. They wanted the Slayer, me, to protect her, so they made her my sister. Which means they made her **_out_** of me."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "You'd think they could have chosen someone with a better fashion sense," she confided to Remus in a loud whisper.

"Hey!"

Predictably, Buffy took offense to the statement, and another little spat began.

"Er," Remus spoke up timidly, unsure if it was a wise decision to interrupt. "Excuse me…girls?"

They turned to look at him in complete unison, with the same look of annoyance on their faces, their heads angled in exactly the same way.

He blinked. _Wow. Scary._

Wisely, he didn't say that aloud, and simply said, "So, they made Dawn out of you, Buffy."

Buffy nodded, smiling brightly, as she had yesterday, when they had first met.

"Well, to be honest, I don't understand what this has to do with me," Remus admitted, feeling like an idiot.

He immediately regretted it when he saw the expression on Dawn's face sort of twitch, crumple, and then become utterly blank as she looked down at her lap.

He dared not even look at Buffy, not wanting to see what an angry Slayer looked like.

"Unless," he added rapidly, "it has to do with me gaining another sister."

Dawn lifted her head slightly, enough for him to make out red-rimmed eyes, and gazed at him with large eyes that no girl over fifteen should ever possess. But she was twenty, and Remus felt sorry for whoever became her husband, because those eyes could melt wills far hardier than his.

"Really?" she sniffled, and Buffy was looking at him, too.

He remembered when Buffy was born, how excited he had been. He remembered the day he finally understood exactly what had happened, why Buffy was taken away. He remembered his Mum and Dad, how much they had loved children and wanted many more.

But they had never had the chance.

Because of him.

Because by the time he had been old enough to live on his own, they had died, one after the other.

And now here he was, having been reunited with Buffy and already loving her, even though he had barely scratched away the surface of her life, and hadn't seen her grow up.

And there was another girl, who had Buffy in her, who therefore had Buffy's parents in her, who were Remus' parents, too. But he was already loving her, even though he didn't know the things she liked or hated or what made her tick, and hadn't seen her grow up.

Remus smiled widely at both of his sisters, "Really."

Then he was suffocating inside the steel arms of a Slayer and the tight embrace of an enthused girl barely out of her teens.

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FIN.


End file.
